"People who want to express themselves need to be given an opportunity," Buckhorn said during a televised debate sponsored by the Tampa Bay Times and Bay News 9 on March 8, 2011.

The question was: Would he balance the rights of citizens to protest during the convention with his responsibilities to keep downtown Tampa functioning and safe?

He did, according to PolitiFact Florida's Buck-O-Meter, which tracks Buckhorn's performance on 34 campaign promises.

In training officers to work the convention, police and Hillsborough County sheriff's officials said they put particular emphasis on the need to protect the First Amendment rights of demonstrators and journalists.

Police originally said up to 15,000 protesters might converge on Tampa. Instead, the total was closer to 2,000.

Protests were peaceful, and police said they worked to defuse potential confrontation by finding out what protesters wanted, and, if it didn't hurt anyone, letting them do it.

At the end of the week, authorities had made just two RNC-related arrests.

Beyond some graffiti, there was no reported property damage.

Michael E. Pheneger, the president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, praised the city for having senior officials on the scene of the protests, for making decisions that avoided confrontation, for training officers to be friendly and communicative, and generally for "being flexible under the circumstances."

"I don't know that anybody can complain that they were not allowed to get their message out," Pheneger said.

We rate this as a Promise Kept.

On the web

This Buck-O-Meter rating has been edited for print. The complete rating can be found at politifact.com/florida/promises/buck-o-meter

There is a reason why the air in Tampa Bay is filled with playoff talk. If Thursday night's 12-8 Bucs preseason win over the Jaguars is any indication, it's also going to be filled with footballs thrown by quarterback Jameis Winston.